


Despite All Her Rage

by RadScavver



Series: Steve Harrington, Demogorgon-Whisperer [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Confrontations, Gen, Grumpy Jim "Chief" Hopper, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Protective Steve Harrington, Slight Mental Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22775785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadScavver/pseuds/RadScavver
Summary: It's February, 1984. Steve's been adjusting to his new companion; then Hopper says there might be a solution, a way to cut the strange ties between them.But maybe it's not the answer they were thinking of...just the belief of a very hurt little kid.
Relationships: Demogorgon & Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Demogorgon
Series: Steve Harrington, Demogorgon-Whisperer [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609186
Comments: 3
Kudos: 74





	Despite All Her Rage

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place around mid-February, and as of this point only Hopper and Steve know Eleven's in Hawkins.

Steve’s had it. He really has. He’s been struggling to deal with his new tag-along and the way It seems to pop up at the most inconvenient times. Date night with Nancy? Boom, there It is. Trying to take notes in the middle of chemistry? Suddenly the lights are going insane and Steve’s booking it into the hall with an excuse about looking for a janitor. Using the goddamn  _ restroom _ ? Not anymore because there’s Wiggles clambering out of the wall! He can never get a moment’s peace.

Until now, apparently.

Hopper had brought El over in hopes that they could figure something out about Steve’s link to the Demogorgon. There’s a hope, small as it is, that she’ll have the ability to sever the connection somehow.

Which would work a lot better if Wiggles would actually show up.

So, Steve’s now waiting awkwardly in the dining room, that he never uses, with the Chief of Police and a wayward little girl that looks like an extra straight out of Annie. He’s trying not to seem as overwhelmed as he feels. It’s hard to do that, though, when most of his concentration is focused on trying to keep from screaming and scratching at what has to be a swarm of crickets rushing around his body. If he lets himself, he’s pretty sure he would see the little bulge of them stretching out his skin as they scurry to and fro. He’s only just resisting the urge to dig his nails in.

“Kid, is this thing ever going to show up,” Hopper snaps, after angrily tapping a pack of smokes against the lacquered table top for about two minutes, “or am I going to have to resort to other methods?”

Eyes darting over to the gruff man warily, Steve straightens in his own uncomfortable chair. He feels something like a rattle in the upward arch of his rib cage, and all he can think is that it’s a warning. The little girl is still staring at Steve with flat eyes. He’s not sure what freaks him out more at this point. Honestly, the itchy sensations of bugs constantly  _ in him _ is winning out over everything.

“Look, you know what? Wiggles  _ is _ here. Just not on our side of things,” Steve says. One hand comes up to scratch furiously at a spot just under the hinge of his jaw, where it feels like a mosquito is taking a nibble. That girl’s eyes hone in on the move. “I can feel him, you know? Like...like he’s right next to me, but stuck inside a jar or something. And guess what?”

Hopper looks fed up, but his whole body goes still when Steve’s gaze turns to El. Yet she meets his look with a steady one of her own. It’s unsettling, sort of reminds Steve of those dead fish that still have the heads. The ones he’d hated looking at in the grocery store. So cold, empty.

They made his skin crawl, too.

“He feels pretty damn scared of you.”

Now, those eyes are terrifying. A strange depth behind them is sucking Steve in, making him so very aware of the scuttling beetles in his head. There’s a surge, violent, panicked, and that annoying little tickle turns into a buzz of wings. Everything is lost to white noise. Everything except a spike of absolute dread.

He doesn’t know how he does it, but Steve jerks his head back with eyes slamming closed. A throbbing in his temples makes him rock. There’s something hot on his lips.

“El, what did you  _ do _ ?” Hopper’s yelling. “What the hell did you do to him?”

Head lolling uselessly, Steve tries to make sense of things. It’s hard because the dining room has gone fuzzy on him; there’s a weird high-pitched hum in his ears. The only thing that seems to be still are dark, steady eyes. Something rushes down his throat with dozens of legs, and he wants to throw up. He wants to run. Then the eyes move toward him.

A lot of things happen all at once. Steve tries to put distance between himself and those haunting eyes, but only manages to send himself crashing to the floor along with two chairs. Hopper is bellowing out orders, knocking down another chair as he stands. The eyes are suddenly not focused on him.

Wiggles is screeching with a fury raw enough to make Steve’s bones twinge.

_ “N O!” _

He hadn’t even heard the destruction of a gate forming, but there’s no mistaking the exaggerated proportions of the Demogorgon. Especially not when It’s braced above him. Steve’s very own guard monster.

With a weak laugh, he reaches up to pat the sticky skin on Its belly, “Hey, buddy.”

Chest rumbling with a crackled growl, Wiggles settles defensively with his face half-flared. A weird bloom of furious promise, like a waiting Venus Flytrap. El watches them still, now perched on the glossy table top. Her vacant gaze traces over the stretched skin and strange angles before lighting on Steve’s face.

“You know,” Steve chuckles, coughing past the taste of copper in the back of his throat, “it’s rude to try and mess with people’s heads without permission.”

She at least looks admonished.

*

If it had been awkward before, it was infinitely worse now that Wiggles had decided to linger. Steve had tried to ask about the sudden change of heart. The sudden suffocating wash of hornet’s buzzing that blotted out all other sound made him reconsider. And so he found himself cowed, by a very twitchy Demogorgon, into sitting near the basement door while It laid itself out at his feet. He wonders if this is what it felt like to have a lion as a pet. He wipes at the crust of dried blood under his nose, wisely keeping the thought to himself.

“Okay,” Hopper says, a rough sigh riding the word, “would anyone like to explain why I feel like I’m one step away from reffing a dogfight?”

El shifts in place but says nothing. Barely glancing at Wiggles, despite the renewed round of rumbling, Steve shrugs.

“Look, as far as I can tell, she did something before.” One hand absently passes over a tensed haunch, feels it relax and bunch with the slightest brush of fingertips. “I really don’t know  _ what _ happened, but Wiggles is basically all batshit junkyard dog brain right now. Been awful ever since she got out of your truck, Hop.”

The chief looks between the squirming alien and the frighteningly still child. There’s almost a static hum from the hostility pouring off both of them; Hopper really doesn’t have the patience to deal with any of this crap. Then again, all it takes is a glance around the room to realize that probably the only one here with any actual steady footing here is Steve, and isn’t that the kicker? How the hell some high school brat managed to deal with all this other-world drama was beyond Hopper’s understanding. He can’t deny being a little envious.

He huffs, scrubs a hand across his forehead, and finally asks, “Fine. Eleven, would you like to tell us why this thing-”

Steve hums, “Wiggles.”

“Jesus fu-sure. Why does  _ Wiggles _ have a problem with you?”

She blinks. Hollow eyes drag from the flexing petals to where Steve’s hand grazes along gummy skin. Something twists at the corners of her mouth, maybe flashes through that dull stare.

“I need to kill it.” She actually scowls when Wiggles screeches. “It’s my fault. I need to fix it.”

“Dude, what the hell? That’s not happening.”

Steve shimmies himself out from behind Wiggles, eliciting an even higher-pitched wail, to cross the short distance between them. He kneels in front of her and drags her into a hug. The awful sting of little insect feet under his skin vanishes. El-because he is  _ not  _ calling this girl ‘eleven,’ like she’s an  _ object _ -is rigid in his grasp, a breath away from shattering.

“No way. Absolutely no way,” he murmurs into her shorn hair. “You...you’re just a kid. A  _ kid _ . You’re supposed to worry about, about...I don’t know, jelly bracelets? Not this shit.”

Tiny hands curl into the sides of his shirt, and the tremble of them makes something hot surge in his chest. It’s a raw anger that strikes so deep inside that he can almost hear it ring along his bones. Behind him, Wiggles shudders but only Hopper really sees it.

“You’re not killing anyone. None of this is on you; no one is going to let you do this. Not me, not Hop, no one. You’re a little girl, not whatever shit they’ve told us. ‘Russian criminal,’ my ass.”

She’s shaking now, rattling apart. His shirt is damp. Hopper’s eyes are heavy on him, pressing down on his head.

“Harrington.” Hopper sighs again. Deep and long and tired. He’s so tired. “Steve, she’s killed people. Actual human beings.”

His head snaps up, whiplash fast, and from the way the chief actually steps back, he thinks maybe Wiggles has done the same. There aren’t any bugs, though. But he doesn’t care, not when this man, this figurehead of Justice, is condemning a scared child to a darker nature.

“What the fuck makes them  _ actual _ humans, Chief? Huh? You’re trying to tell me this girl is a fucking murderer, that it? Do you  _ hear _ yourself?”

He’s pulled her in tight, cradling her against him like he can wall off the rest of the world. He feels spit fly from his teeth, venom drip from his voice.

“Don’t give me that crap! You want to drink the Kool-aid, you go ahead; I’m not letting you turn this kid into a fucking killer-for-hire. She looks like she’s the same age as Nancy’s baby brother, and you say she’s killed people? Did you ask  _ why _ ? Holy shit, did you even think about why she would?”

“Look, you don’t know-”

“And you do?” Steve’s yelling. There’s a rushing sound, all around him, and he can almost smell smoke. “What the  _ fuck _ did these people do to her, Hop? Her head is shaved; you called her  _ Eleven _ . Kids aren’t named after  _ numbers _ !”

Wiggles shrieks and Hopper is stumbling away from them. Gritting his teeth, teeth that feel too thin, too long, Steve bites out a sharp command for the Demogorgon to stay. A scared little girl trembles in his arms. Rattles him more than his own blinding anger. The anger, smothering him in a black fog, that nearly deafens him to a tear-soaked whisper.

“I tried to kill it. That night, I-”

*

_ She’d killed them. The bad people in dark clothes, pointing huge guns at her friends. There’d been so many of them. The Party had been screaming, wriggling ineffectively in iron-strong hands, and she’s only been this scared once before. But even seeing a real monster wasn’t as scary as this. _

_ Because  _ Papa _ is here. He’s smiling, soft and cold. _

_ And the wall behind him is crumbling. _

_ She’s barely able to speak; the boys carry her off into a room to hide from the screams and gunfire. There’d only been a glimpse of it. Her nightmare made real. It had fallen upon Papa in seconds, and the crunch made her queasy stomach flip. But the boys are laying her out on a table, and it reminds her of the Labs because it’s cold and uncomfortable and her head is spinning. The Party is too loud. Yelling, panicking. Outside the room, it sounds like the world is collapsing. _

_ Then the lights are flashing. _

_ The door comes crashing down. _

_ It’s here. _

_ More screams, but this time it’s Dustin. And Mike. The snap and whoosh of Lucas’ Wrist Rocket. A hissing growl that makes her veins go to ice. _

_ No more. _

_ She’s pushing herself up, and there’s another snap and thump as another rock strikes the monster. It snarls, prowls toward them. Another creak of rubber as Lucas draws again. It screeches. The next rock is a cannon because now she’s the one firing it. _

_ The monster is pinned to the wall, keening and struggling. Her nose is hot. Like the blood dripping toward her lips. Like the fury in her heart. Behind her are her friends. Her boys. Her  _ Mike _. They’re helpless to this demon, but she’s not. _

_ “No more.” _

_ One of Its arms flails at her, those wicked claws barely an inch from her face. She presses harder. Somewhere behind Its ribs, there’s a glow growing. With a wail, It smashes the paw back toward the wall It’s against. The talons dig in easy, scooping through reality itself and letting It sink into the Upside Down. She screams, enraged, when It slips from her hold into darkness. _

No more!

_ She will not let it get away again. This all needs to end. The Demogorgon and herself. _

_ So, she lunges into that writhing hollow to hunt her sins. _

_ The Upside Down is a terrible place. What little she knows of it has come from trips to the Dark Place. She’s seen the strange growth from Barb’s corpse; the odd clinging frost that had wrapped around Will’s fort. But being there is so much worse. It’s scarier than seeing the Demogorgon, when it was just a monster haunting the watery black. Everything around her is sick. Feels  _ wrong _. There’s cold that sinks deep under her skin until it feels like everything inside her is made of ice. _

_ The only thing hot is the anger. _

_ It burns behind her ribs as she sees the Demogorgon stalking off down the hall. Makes her breath steam as she runs after. But It’s fast. Much faster than an exhausted little girl. Too fast for the anger to keep its heat, and the Demogorgon is nowhere to be seen when her rage finally breaks under the chill. _

_ Because she can think when It’s not right in front of her. _

_ And she’s alone. _

_ The ice under her skin grows heavy. El’s the only one here now. She and the monster she’d set free. There’s nobody to help her, or bring her back to the real world. No Nancy, no Jonathan, no Hopper, and no Joyce. No Party. No Mike. _

_ Just Eleven and the Demogorgon, the way this all started. _

_ She...she doesn’t want to be here. _

_ She’s so scared. _

_ Eyes darting around, frantic to find a way out, she calls out, “Mike?” _

_ There’s no answer, only a terrible echo in the empty halls. _

_ “Mike?” She’s panicking now. Ice is spreading and making her arms shake. “Mike!” _

_ There’s a soft wet clicking sound somewhere around her. Bouncing around all over so that she can’t tell where it’s coming from. Her heart thumps. _

_ “MIKE!” _

_ She runs, sprints wild through the halls, looking for a way out. _

_ “MIKE!” _

_ Time is lost to her. So is the school. She races through Hawkins, gasping and wheezing. The whole town is eerily silent, not even that horrible gurgling from before. The strange muffled way she hears things makes her throat lock up and chains her voice with fear. Like if she screams out here now, shivering in the open, maybe something worse will find her. Something far worse than the Demogorgon. _

_ Eventually, she stops. She ducks into the store where she’d gotten the Eggos, curling herself tight in a cubby under one of the strange machines all set in neat rows. All she can do is shiver, let the tears come and sting her cheeks. _

_ She has no way back to the real world. Especially not now, lost in this oozy wet bad dream copy. After she’s chased her nightmares and only gone deeper into them. What is she going to do now? What  _ can  _ she do? _

_ There’s a sound, soft and rolling and enough to make her body seize. It’s found her. Heavy thumping steps rattle the loose supplies above her head, hum through the vine-layered tile. Her heart beats so quickly, so loud, she’s sure It can hear. When something nearby crashes down and It screeches, Eleven panics. She’s bolting from her hidey-hole and sprinting back into the streets. _

_ She runs and runs and runs, trying to put as much distance as she can between them. But the gurgling snarls are never very far behind her. Sometimes, they come from a different way. Sometimes they come from directly in front of her. It’s not until the school looms before her that she realizes It’s been  _ herding _ her. With a whimper, Eleven tries to turn away again, anywhere but the cramped hallways and smears of blood. _

_ But there’s something. A spark in the air, tingling under her skin. Making her scalp prickle with a sudden need to lash out with her abilities. Somewhere out in those trees, there’s a new threat, and this one...this one is much more angry. This one feels like lightning looks, like how thunder shakes the world. The shivery rage coils around her like living ropes. Ready to trap her forever. _

_ Suddenly, the school seems much safer. _

_ So Eleven runs, and this time the growls of before sound much less frightening. _

*

Tears burn her eyes. A hand smooths gently along her fluffy hair, easing her fears and harsh memories away. Steve’s rocking her, slow and in time with a low humming. For a moment, she rides the waves of it. But then she feels a heat at her back, damp and radiating, and she has to peek. Needs to know. And the domed head of the Demogorgon meets her gaze, petaled mouth folded peacefully. Steve gives her a squeeze.

“He’s not mad, you know. Just scared.” One bare foot lifts to prod at the hollow under Its ribs. “Like you were.”

She stares at that horrible face, eyes tracing the lines of Its jaws and the twists of Its skin. Does so until It turns from her with a bubbled hiss of a sound. Under her hands, laughter rumbles through Steve’s chest. When she peeks, just a little glimpse, she can feel something crawl across her cheeks-Steve’s cheeks-with tiny pricking steps.

“He thinks you’d make a good hunter,” Steve whispers. “I think he’s jealous.”

The Demogorgon... _ Wiggles _ hisses and shuffles in his spot. Eleven would say It’s pouting. This big scary thing, grumping about like Hopper, like Mike. She can’t help a tiny grin because it isn’t the strangest thing. Then she thinks of the Upside Down, the angry threat in the dark.

No...no, there are much stranger things brewing in the shadows.


End file.
